Coming Early
by Belle Charzar 19
Summary: Swanfire! I love this pairing so much! I had the thought come into my head: what if Neal had come to find Emma instead of being found by her? This is my take on what could have happened. Please enjoy! (Rating is just to be safe!) [Neal x Emma]


**AN: Just realized I forgot to do this, DO NOT OWN any of these characters (sadly). Thank you for reading! :)**

I'm making lunch for myself and to take to David, I mean Dad, at the station. I still can't believe the curse was real. Henry's not crazy. I'm glad that everyone's going back to their jobs and that Dad volunteered to help at the station; I needed some time to adjust this morning. The curse just broke yesterday. I still don't know how well I'm actually processing it, if I'm honest.

There's a knocking at the door, and I go to answer it wondering who on earth could be at our door at this time. Shouldn't pretty much everyone be at work? I open it and freeze in shock. "Emma."

I respond without thinking, "Neal." I reach out to him and then I snap back to myself and slam the door closed and slide my back down against it, sitting on the ground.

"Emma! I found you. I've been looking for you!" I laugh bitterly. "No seriously, Emma. I have been looking for you. I-I'm so so sorry I left you. I was a scared fool. Emma, I know about the curse. I know about the- the fairy-tale characters. Emma-"

"How on earth do you know about it?!"

"I come from that world too, Emma-"

"What?! Never thought that important, like 'Oh, Emma, by the way, I grew up in a place where magic is very much real and the fairy-tales you grew up with are actually off-versions of true stories back home.' How about that Neal? Who are your parents then? Huh? Huh?"

I hear him sigh through the door, "Rumplestiltkin is my Father. After he became the dark one, I-"

I whisper just loud enough for him to hear, "You made a deal with him that if you found a safe way to be rid of his magic, he would. You found the blue fairy; she gave you a magic bean that would bring you to the world without magic. He let you go choosing his power over you." I pause, "Is that it?" I ask tiredly.

"Y-yeah, but how did you know all of that?"

"Henry told me; it was in his book that he used to try to convince about all of this being true."

"Wow- wait, who's Henry?"

I freeze and sigh again deeply, "Neal…. he's our son." I look at the ceiling when I hear his sharp intake of breath.

"I-I….I abandoned my son?"

"Yeah. Not that you knew about him, I never told you. But, I didn't know until I was in the jail cell you set me up to be in."

He sounds broken up when he says, "I'm so sorry, Emma. August, I told August to tell me if anything significant changed!" I hear him punch the floor. "I think you being pregnant would be a significant change!"

"Wait, you know August? As in, Pinocchio? That August?"

"August W. Booth who rides a motor cycle and has a type writer? He's Pinocchio?"

"Yeah, apparently."

"Great. I trusted Pinocchio when making the biggest decision in my life." He doesn't say anything else. I let the tears roll silently down my face. We sit together, separated only by a door after all this time for a few hours.

Eventually, I hear footsteps coming up the stairs, and I decide to ignore them. Then, I hear Dad exclaim, "Who are you and why are you outside my door?" I hear Neal scramble up.

"U-um, I'm Neal Cassidy, and I've been looking for Em-"

"You're my Dad?" I hear Henry say. There's a pregnant pause before Henry says, "Mom said my Dad's name is Neal Cassidy. You're him?" I can only guess that he nods. I decide to get up. "How could you leave my Mom?!" I open the door and see Henry punching Neal in the gut."I hate you!" He cries as I pull him off of Neal. I refuse eye contact with Neal as I hold Henry to me. He wraps his legs around my waist as he cries on my shoulder into my hair. I see my parents standing there in wide-eyed shock. I look to Neal and see that he looks crest-fallen and heartbroken.

I take a fortifying breath and say quietly, "Why don't you come in? We should probably talk." He nods, and I turn and walk inside.

Henry sniffles and says angrily, "You shouldn't invite him in, Mom. He-"

"Henry. I'm inviting him inside, so we can talk like adults. I'm not going to make you talk to him if you truly don't want to, but," I sigh, "to me, it sounds like I'm missing part of the story. I need to hear him out and listen to whatever stupid or possibly not completely idiotic reasons he gives for leaving me. But Henry, I promise, once he's done, he's leaving for the night at least, okay?"

"Okay, Mom. Can you take me upstairs?" He burrows his face in my neck further, "I don't want to listen to him talk. You can tell me what he says later if you think I should know." I pat his back.

"Alright, kid. Let's go." I carry him up the stairs and put him in our bed. He lies down and looks at the ceiling. I tickle him, and he laughs happily. I'm sure it echos to downstairs. "Nothing has to change, kiddo. I'm just going to hear him out, okay?"

"You promise?" I nod. "Pinky promise?"

I hold my pinky out to him and loop it with his, "I pinky promise nothing has to change." He smiles and lays back into the pillow. I pull the blanket up around him. I go downstairs and see Mom in the kitchen making dinner. Apparently, it was several hours. I then notice Dad sitting on the chair staring at Neal who's seated on the couch. "Hey." Neal looks relieved to see me.

"Hey sweetheart." Dad says not breaking his concentration on Neal.

I sit next to Neal on the couch. "Alright, tell me what happened with August."

He sighs, "Well, that day, I went to go fence the watches you got from the locker for me. However, someone starting chasing me; so of course, I ran. He yelled out that he wasn't a cop, so I yelled back asking why he was chasing me then. He said that he was your quote un-quote 'guardian angel'. I asked him where the hell he'd been for the rest of your life. He said that he'd been a selfish bastard, but that he's back now. He said I was bad for you and that I should leave you. I scoffed at him and told him…" He meets my eyes, "I told him, I'm in love with Emma Swan. I'll never leave her no matter what her so-called guardian angel says. He glared at me and said I should reconsider. I scoffed and turned to find the guy who would buy the watches, but he grabbed my arm. He said that I'd reconsider once I saw what was in his case. I rolled my eyes and asked him that after he showed me if he'd let me go to fence the watches and get back to you. He said that he would let me leave after I looked at whatever it was. I said I'd look. He opened it, and he had typed out on his typewriter 'I know you're Baelfire.' I was terrified, and he had definitely gotten my attention. You see, I'd gotten rid of that part of me as soon as I could here in this world." He rubs his face clear of tears that had fallen and makes eye contact again. "Then he said that you have a destiny. A destiny to be the Savior. A destiny to save a group of people, including my Father, from a dark curse after your twenty-eighth birthday. A destiny that… a destiny that I was apparently disrupting by being with you. He said that by being with you… that by being with you, it would mean you never found your family. It would mean that you would never break the curse. He said your parents were Snow White and Prince Charming. He said that if I didn't leave you, you wouldn't ever get to meet them, get to know them, and they would never, ever remember that they even had a daughter. He said that I would keep you from your destiny and that you would forever feel an emptiness inside you. I… I believed him. I was a coward. I left you. I let August set you up to go to prison for me. Partly to let you go to your destiny, but, and I'm so ashamed to admit this, but my biggest reason was for myself. I… I never wanted to deal with my Father again, not even just to see him. Most of me thought that by being with you, it would actually help you in your destiny because I would have told you about the fairy tale world, and at that time, you still trusted me and my word. You would have believed me. You probably would have broken the curse faster, been united with your family faster. You never would have been alone again." He sobs, "But I was a coward who realized that if I helped you with your destiny… if I did that, I'd have to face my Father. I… I chose myself over you. But," his eyes flash, "if that jerk-wad had told me of _significant changes_ such as YOU BEING PREGNANT, I would have come back in a heartbeat. The guilt ate at me. I gave August the key chain, the car (which I had gotten a clean vin number), and all the money from the fenced watches. I didn't keep even a penny to myself. I gave it all to August, who's apparently Pinocchio, to give to you once you got out of prison." He hangs his head, "I've regretted my cowardice everyday since. It's why I moved to a hotel near here. I had to approximate, but every weekend after your twenty-eighth birthday, I drive on that road from that hotel to the end of Maine hoping to find Storybrooke. I drive back the next day and repeat the next weekend. Apparently my approximations are close to correct because the hotel is actually only 10 miles out of town."

There is complete silence in the flat for a few minutes as Neal and I both cry silently keeping eye contact. Neal brokenly whispers, "I'm so sorry, Emma. I still do love you. I never stopped." He reaches his hand out to me putting it about an inch from my face giving me the choice. I lean into the touch and the corners of his lips turn up.

"Neal… As much as… as much as I want to hate you, to never forgive you, to not listen, to kick you out of that door and insist you never come back, I-I…" I pause because continuing is hard. My shoulders slump wearily, "I can't. I just… I just can't." He wipes the fresh tears away softly, not saying a word. I whisper hoarsely, "I can't hate you because I knew the second I opened that door and realized it was you who was standing there… I-I never stopped loving you either, Neal." He started to smile, and I raised a hand as a stop. He froze, "But… but I can't just let you back into my life like that again. It's-it's not just me anymore." I try to smile and am sure that it's just wobbly, "We have a wonderful son who needs his Mom. I… I… Neal… I can't put me first. Henry. Henry is first, so… so as much as it kills me," I give another wobbly smile and whisper even more hoarsely, "you've got to go. At least until I tell Henry what's going on. I made a promise to my son that nothing had to change. I have no intentions of ever breaking my word to him. I will always." I close my eyes and take another fortifying breath, "Always choose my son." I cringe, "Our son." sigh, "Please go, Neal. You should be able to get a room at Granny's Inn." He caresses my face gently until I open my eyes and meet his.

"I'll go. You… you know where I'll be. Come find me," he gives a self-depreciating grin, "I think it's your turn to find me." I chuckle softly and nod. He gets up and says to the room at large, "Thank you for letting me come in. Good night." He then leaves without turning. I stand and have to stop myself from chasing after him.

Once he closes the door behind himself, I sit back down and wrap my arms around myself and just sob. I feel someone sit next to me and wrap their arms around me. I let them pull me into their embrace and sob. "Mom?"

I spring up from where I was and look up at him. He looks concerned and is about to speak again when I start instead, "Did I wake you? I'm sorry, let's go back to bed." As I speak, he comes over to me and wraps his arms around me.

"Mom, you're crying. I don't need to go to bed yet; I can stay with you. I want to stay with you, Mom." I feel my shirt getting a wet and kneel down to his level to wipe his face clear.

"Henry, what's wrong? Why are you crying?"

He sniffs a bit, "Never mind me, I'm trying to comfort you, Mom." He latches himself to me again.

I chuckle a little and even to me it sounds watery, "Henry, kid, you're first." I pull back again to look into his eyes. "Let me help you. I promise, helping you will help me too. I love ya, kiddo."

"I know!" He sobs. "That's why I'm crying!"

"What? I don't understand, Henry."

"I-I know I shouldn't eavesdrop, but I didn't want the condensed version that you or he would tell me about what he said tonight. I wanted to hear it all." I breath in sharply, "He still loves you. You still love him. You made him leave because you love me. Thank you, Mom. You're the best Mom on the planet! You- you made the man you love leave just to help your when you're practically breaking apart for watching him leave once again, you drop everything to help me once you see that I'm crying. I love you, Mom!" He cries.

I just kneel there in shock, staring dumbfounded as a I numbly start clearing his face and rubbing his hair and back. "It's alright, kiddo. No need to cry; Mom will be alright. Maybe not right now," he chuckles with me and wipes some tears off my face that I hadn't even noticed, "But I will be." I smile at him, "Especially if you're here. I love you, kiddo." I hear a sniff behind me.

Both Henry and I startle and look behind me. We see Mom trying to subtly wipe away tears hastily. "Sorry! Didn't mean to interrupt, but that… everything that has happened since we got back has been beautiful and heart-wrenching at the same time." She clears her throat, "Anyway, dinner is ready, so everyone needs to come to the table."

The next morning, I walk with Henry to Granny's for a Mom-Son breakfast at Granny's. We're seated for awhile when Henry suddenly says, "Hey, Mom, I think you should go find him."

I start so harshly that I spill my coffee on my shirt, "Shoot Henry, you can't just come out the blue with stuff like that, kid!" I start scrubbing at my shirt with some napkins. "Where did that come from anyway? Last night, you were super happy that I sent him away." I'm still cleaning my shirt, so I don't see his grin.

"Well, I think I'd like to talk to him. He sounded completely sincere last night, and if you're willing to give him another chance, I guess I can give him a slip of a chance. But if he hurts you again, I'll punch him again. I'll make sure it actually hurts this time. On a completely unrelated topic, can I ask Grandpa to teach me how to fight?"

I chuckle at him, "Alright, I'll go find him later, and sure, if your Grandpa is up for it, go ahead. Maybe you could also ask your Dad, since he's from there too. He'd probably like to have bonding time with you."

He scrunches his nose, "Well… given that most of the reason is so that I can actually hurt him instead of my pathetic-ness yesterday… I don't think that would be a great idea."

"Henry! Don't actually go punching your Father."

"If I hurt you again, I would certainly deserve it." Neal says as he slides in next to me. He grins at me once I look up at him finally, "Nice coffee stain. Maybe keep it in the cup next time."

"Wh- when did you get here?"

"Hmm… Right after I walked in the door Henry told you that you should come find me. Then he very effectively warned me about hurting you." He shrugs off his sweater and gives it to me. "Why don't you trade the stained shirt for this?"

"U-um thanks." He slides out, and I quickly scurry to the back to change. I swiftly tear off my stained shirt; I look around while standing in my bra and pants before I bring his sweater to my nose and inhale. He still smells the same. He smells like home; the only home I've ever known. I sigh and then slide it on. I walk back out to the table, and he lets me slide in next to the wall where I like it. He puts his arm behind me on the top of the bench seat.

"I forgot how big my stuff is on you." He chuckles with a soft, affectionate look in his eye. I blush and flick his arm. He just chuckles again. Henry is just watching us with interest.

"Are you going to order?"

"Impatient much? Yeah, I'll order and keep you here as long as I can." He grins deviously, and Henry laughs. Neal orders, and we talk for awhile. When he's done eating, Ruby brings the check separated into 2: Henry and I, and Neal. Neal doesn't even let me look at the prices he just put his card in it and gives it back.

"Hey!"

He grins deviously, "Would you have let me pay for it if I'd given you a chance to stop me?"

"No! Of course not!"

"Then, I regret nothing for that." Henry joins in his laughter, and I roll my eyes. Then, my phone goes off.

"Hello?"

"Miss Swan. I need you to come to my shop immediately. I am calling in that favor you owe me. Come alone."

"Er, alright. Be," click, "right there." I finish rolling my eyes. "He hung up on me."

"Who called, Mom?"

"Gold, I've got to go. Neal, can you take Henry back to the apartment? Unless you want to hang out, just bring him back in tie for lunch. Mom wants to make family lunch."

"Sure Emma. See you, I'll take care of Henry." I smile at him and then hug Henry and kiss him on the top of his head.

"Love you kiddo, I'll see you for lunch. If you need me before then for any reason, call me, okay?"

"Love you too, and yeah Mom, I got the drill." I ruffle his hair and head out.

"What favor do you want Gold?" I say once I'm in the shop and close to the counter.

"You are going to help me find my son. His name is Baelfire; your favor is going to be finding him and getting him to talk to me."

"Alright, that's what you want your sure?" He nods, "So, if I find your son and get him to talk to you, we're even?"

"Yes, Miss Swan. That's it. That's what I require from you. This is the only thing you can do that I will consider to make us even!"

"Alright, give me 20 minutes, okay?"

"What? Why?" I'm already leaving the shop, "Fine. Just be ready to go and in here in 20 minutes!"

I call back, "Okay, will do Gold." Once out of the store, I call Henry. "Hey kiddo, is your Dad still with you?"

"Yeah, he's here."

"Alright, well where are you?"

"We're by the docks, why? What's going on? What does Gold want?"

I hear Neal ask in the background, "Who's Gold? This is the second time he's been mentioned."

I hear Henry answer him, "He's Rumplestiltskin."

I hear sound on the phone and then, "You went to talk to my Father alone while I'm here to go with you?!"

I hear Henry ask both over the phone and in person, "He's your Dad?! Rumplestiltskin is my Grandpa?!"

"Yeah, I'm hanging up. I can see you."

"Em-" click.

"Hey, so-"

"What the hell, Emma?"

"Er, well I owe Gold a favor, and" I raise my hand in a stop motion, "Let me finish. Anyway, he said the only way I can clear up the favor debt owed to him is to 'find his son and get him to talk to him'. Would you come with me and talk to him?"

"You made a deal with Rumplestiltskin?!" He looks angry.

"First off: you should ask for the story behind it before you go judging me. Second: I was saving Ashley (who is Cinderella) from having to give up her child when she didn't want to. Third: I didn't believe in the curse yet, so he was just a rude, weird old dude to me. Fourth: I would do it again in a heartbeat to save her from having to give up her child when she didn't want to." He looks subdued. I continue, "I gave Henry up because I wanted to give him his best chance, and I didn't think his best chance was with his single mother with nothing to her name, even my name is false. I didn't have a last name for awhile. It was doe until I ran away and when I came back I decided to give myself Swan as a sort of hope that I'd grow to be a Swan- which is stupid. Anyway, I felt he deserved better than me, and honestly, I was also terrified to raise a kid alone." Neal looks sad again. "Now will you help me fulfill my debt?"

"Yeah, of course I will, Emma."

"Let's go, I kind of need to hurry." The three of us head to the shop. When we get to the counter and Gold's not there, I call out, "Hey, Gold, I have your son."

He practically runs out with wide eyes, "Bae? How are you here already? Why are you with Miss Swan?"

"Yes, Papa, it's really me. I'm here because… because I love Emma. I also just learned I have a son of my own. You have a Grandson, Papa." Gold looks between Neal, Henry, and I almost incredulously.

"Really Bae? Miss Swan is your… lover?"

"It's actually Neal now, and er-" he looks at me as he says this part, "we were actually engaged when I left her, not knowing she was pregnant." Henry gasps.

"You two were engaged?!" Gold and Henry both practically shout.

"Er- yeah. We were. He actually proposed the day he left me, right after I'd gotten the watches, which made it seem like the proposal was fake when later I found out he'd set me up to go to prison for him." I see Neal cringe and look pained. "But I kept the ring anyway." I pull out the necklace from my shirt. "It has the key chain and the ring."

Neal pulls me into his arms and whispers hoarsely, "I'm so sorry, Emma."

I nod and say, "Thanks, but now is not the time or place."

"Right, right. Papa, what did you want to talk about?" His voice hardened to steel toward the end.

"I wanted to say I'm sorry for choosing fear over you." Neal's eyes widened. "I chose fear over being without my power over you, and I have regretted it everyday, Bae. I've fought so hard to get back to you, son."

After a few moments pause, Neal says, "Emma's debt to you is paid. She brought me to you and had me talk to you. We are leaving."

"Bae-"

"It's Neal!"

He stormed out, and we followed.


End file.
